“Our main strategic objective for 2016 – ‘Accelerate growth’ – was well achieved on the whole. The market situation was weak at the beginning of the year, but sales began growing in line with expectations during the second quarter and remained strong throughout the year.

Sales developed well as from the second quarter and peaked in the fourth quarter, amounting to EUR 6.6 million (EUR 4.8 million 10-12/2015), a year-on-year increase of 39 percent. Full-year net sales amounted to EUR 21.6 million (EUR 17.5 million/2015), representing very strong annual growth of 24 percent.

The development of the new generation of computer network systems generated demand for PCBs, which picked up significantly towards the end of the year and was the main driver of growth in the fourth quarter. The needs of automotive industry customers remained firm throughout the year and the entire customer segment doubled its sales compared to the previous year.

Profitability improved clearly during the fourth quarter as deliveries focused on more technologically demanding products. The operating result for the fourth quarter amounted to EUR 0.8 million, over 12 percent of net sales. Full-year operating result rose into the black and amounted to EUR 0.7 million, or over 3 percent of net sales. Working capital increased by EUR 1.6 million due to business growth. In spite of this, the cash flow was positive at EUR 0.1 million.

The printed circuit board market is estimated to grow by 2 percent in 2017 (source: Custer Consulting Group). Aspocomp expects net sales growth to continue outpacing the market and reach a level of about 10 percent in 2017. Profitability is expected to improve from 2016, mainly due to the growing net sales and more balanced demand."